Archives for October 24th, 2003

NEW GUIDE ON COUNCILLORS’ DUTIES TO CHILDREN IN CARE

Headlines, PublicNet: 24 October, 2003

The local democracy think tank, the Local Government Information Unit, has teamed up with the Department for Education and Skills to highlight the responsibilities faced by local councillors as ‘corporate parents’ for children in care.They have launched ‘If this were my child’ described as a councillor’s guide to being a good corporate parent, and which the two bodies say is an essential toolkit for local authorities as they face new responsibilities arising from the government’s recent Green Paper ‘Every Child Matters’ and the Laming Report earlier this year into the death of Victoria Climbie.

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RESEARCH CALLS FOR LOCAL FREEDOM ON LITERACY STRATEGY

Headlines, PublicNet: 24 October, 2003

New research concludes that schools must be allowed to make their own best judgements on how to adapt national reading and writing standards in the light of their own circumstances and priorities. The detailed study of the implementation of the National Literacy Strategy was led by Dr Gemma Moss of the Institute of Education, at the University of London and sponsored by the Economic and Social Research Council.The study shows that the scheme has, to a large extent, standardised how the English curriculum is covered and has provided standard ways of helping pupils who are making less progress than expected. But Dr Moss says too much emphasis on achieving targets regardless of local conditions can have a distorting effect on teaching and weaken teacher morale

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Seven Habits of Highly Effective Scrutiny

Features, PublicNet: 24 October, 2003

By Jo Dungey The emergence of the scrutiny role was one of the major outcomes from a change in the political structures of local councils. Council members carrying out scrutiny have moved away from detailed management of services to look at service outcomes and other local issues from a more community-oriented point of view. Jo Dungey provides examples of issues being scrutinized and suggests principles that make for effective scrutiny.

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